Ghana needs a disease control centre – Health Service Boss

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, has called on the government to establish a Ghana Centre for Disease Control for early detection of epidemics.

Speaking at the launch of the National E-Health with Bio Surveillance system on Tuesday at the Trauma and Specialist Hospital in Winneba, Dr. Nsiah-Asare, said the system should be used as a base to establish the Disease Control Centre.

He noted that the Disease Control Centre could be used as surveillance for the whole sub-region.

“Like most countries in the sub-region, countries experience epidemic outbreaks. The main problem is that, while a disease surveillance system exists, the health service does not have reliable early warning systems for capturing the outbreaks of such epidemics, thus threshold for responding to epidemic diseases are only noted when the epidemic has already taken hold.”

The National e-health system enables the operation of a real-time Bio-Surveillance system which will support the fight against disease outbreaks and the spread of communicable diseases.

According to Dr. Nsiah-Asare, the Bio-Surveillance system which is an early warning system akin to what is being operated at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States, will help identify the source of a disease and thus enable quarantine measures to be deployed before it becomes an epidemic.

“I am reliably informed that, this e-health system comes with enhanced physical infrastructure and facilities to enable the Centre for Health Information Management and the Disease Surveillance Unit of the Health Service come together to perform a comprehensive surveillance function for the country”.

The e-health system is currently operational in 26 public health facilities across the country.-

Health and education hold the economy for healthy growth. Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare’s suggestion for the provision of this vital health facility demands studied attention and concern. Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo needs to consult with Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare on the possible work to do to bring to being this health facility for Ghana and the West Africa sub-region. A most healthy suggestion this is to grow the country’s economy to healthy growth. It should provide health security for Ghanaians.